


Blood On the Leaves

by DoreyS (DoreyG)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Break Up, M/M, Pre-Canon, Secret Relationship, Start Of Darkness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21615976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyS
Summary: "Ben!" He says sharply, and stares at the man until he finally cracks - with a breath that sounds almost like a sob - and meets his eyes again. "What happened? You look as if you've seen a ghost."
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18
Collections: 300bpm Flash Exchange November 2019





	Blood On the Leaves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wednesday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wednesday/gifts).



"I need to leave," Ben says, paler than he's ever seen him and with a big cut still oozing blood from his forehead. He's wounded elsewhere too, judging by the barely visible stains on his black robes and the stiffness of his stance, and there's a wild look in his eyes that he doesn't like one bit.

"But you only just got here," he says, a weak attempt at a joke, and reaches out to grab Ben's arm before he can nervously shift away. "Ben, what's going on? I thought you were training with Luke, off to become a noble Jedi or some shit like that…"

"That's what I need to leave. Luke, the Jedi, all of it." Ben swallows for a moment, tenses in his grip before folding into himself all at once. "They're not who they say they are, any of them. I can't trust them."

"Ben!" He says sharply, and stares at the man until he finally cracks - with a breath that sounds almost like a sob - and meets his eyes again. "What happened? You look as if you've seen a ghost."

There's a long moment of silence. And for that moment he dares to hope, desperately, that Ben is going to crumble fully. Is going to fall into him, clutch at him desperately, finally reveal what's got him quite so shaken up. Is going to trust him with everything, just as he did years ago when they were both fucked up teenagers with nothing to lose and a whole lot of tension to release.

"...It has been driven home to me, vividly, that I can no longer continue my education with Luke and his reformed Jedi order." Instead Ben steps back fully, a strange and impenetrable mask seeming to slide over his face. "They won't let me develop my powers as I should, so I have to go elsewhere."

"You aren't making any sense," he says, frustrated and scared, and all the more frustrated because he's scared. "What the fuck do you mean elsewhere? There aren't any other Jedi in the universe. Did you just miss the last fifty years or something?"

"I'm not talking about the Jedi," Ben says, and he'd never heard the man's voice sound quite so _wrong_. "I should be a god, you know that? We should all be gods, every last Jedi. And instead Luke, my so called _master_ , has us acting like fools! Reading ancient texts and meditating and pretending that there's balance instead of just a screaming void that will eat us all up in the end. It makes me _sick_!"

He stares in appalled silence for a moment, barely overcomes the urge to take a step back from this thing that Ben is becoming, this dark creature that he's mutating into right before his eyes.

"I deserve better than this. I deserve never to be uncertain again, never to be upset again, never to be _scared_ again. I deserve that, at the very least." Ben's eyes flicker to his again, a strange intensity in their depths. "You could come with me. "

"And do what?" He demands, his voice emerging as little more than a croak. He can't help it, he feels like he's watching something horrible hatch right in front of his eyes. "Be a pet, to be sat on your knee and stroked when you remember me? I'm not force sensitive, Ben, you know there's no place in a universe of gods for people like me."

"It wouldn't have to be like that," Ben says, desperately , and reaches out to clutch at his hands again. "You're not force sensitive, no, but you're still special. You deserve better than this too. You could carve out a space with me. For just the two of us, together."

And for a long moment he's tempted. Shamefully and sickeningly tempted, yes, but still tempted. He's been drawn to Ben's passion ever since they first met, drawn to his unique ability to make anybody feel special while in his orbit. Being with him is like flying, like taking to the wing and fleeing every single obligation that's ever tried to hold him down.

...While all the time knowing that he's going to crash in flames eventually, going to burn up while Ben carelessly watches like he didn't light the fire in the first place.

"And what would that space look like? Covered in blood, and ruled by a God who thinks he's better than anyone else and a man who is pretending to be?" He asks, as gently as he can, and forces himself to step back from Ben's orbit. "I don't know what happened tonight, Ben, but it's done something to you that I don't like. We both know that I can't follow you down this path, no matter how much I want to."

Ben stares at him for a long moment, expression raw. But in the next moment the mask slides back into place, turning him into something dark and distant and damned. "Will you at least give me a head start?"

"I'll do you one better, I won't tell them that you visited me at all. They won't suspect a thing, we've been keeping it a secret for years after all." he swallows, tries to keep his expression neutral. "But you have to go now. I can't harbour you here, all covered in blood and looking like you've come from a bar brawl. They'll find you in the end, and… I can't take your side when that happens. I just can't."

Ben nods, stiffly, and spins for the door. He only pauses for a second, right on the threshold and not even glancing back. "I'll miss you, you know that?"

"I know. I'll miss you too," he whispers, and when he glances over again his room is empty and Ben is gone into the night like he wasn't even there in the first place.


End file.
